Madrid: Markets and Architecture

This tour focuses on the history and gastronomy found in the center of Madrid through its markets and culinary spaces, each one integrating architectural that brings together a market, a sports center, a library, and the Plaza de Santa Bárbara in a single multifunctional container where all spaces are interconnected. Continuing in the Chueca neighborhood, we find the Mercado de San Antón, inaugurated in 1945 by architect Carlos de la Torre y Costa and remodeled in 2008 by Estudio ATARIA. After an in-depth study of the area, the renovation incorporated solid tile bricks inspired by traditional mud construction and introduced basalt—a volcanic rock never before used in Madrid—to reinforce the building both structurally and visually.

We will then explore the Mercado de San Miguel (Alfonso Dubé y Díez, 1916), which preserves its original early 20th-century iron structure. Its two floors, combined with steel and glass façades and generous ceiling heights, allow abundant natural light to fill the space, attracting more than ten million visitors annually. In the Lavapiés district, we will visit the Mercado de San Fernando (Casto Fernández-Shaw, 1944), whose exterior façade recalls palatial forms and evokes the architecture of the Austrias, a style frequently revived during Franco’s regime. Not far away lies the Mercado de Antón Martín, originally commissioned in 1933 from architect Gonzalo Domínguez Espúñez but built only after the war and inaugurated in 1941, later remodeled in the 1950s.